


I carry your heart where I go

by captainkilly



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Conversations, F/M, basically ignores S3 of DD, it's as fluffy as Frank Castle can ever get, just sweet ship fuel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 14:14:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17387870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainkilly/pseuds/captainkilly
Summary: Frank Castle leaves her messages. One day, Karen Page listens.





	I carry your heart where I go

**Author's Note:**

> This is, well, almost entirely born of [this gifset](https://karenpage.tumblr.com/post/181797095244/rupi-kaur) and its quote _"you are everywhere/except right here/and it hurts"_. It's also the first thing in ages that got me writing for these two again, and I cannot say how much I've missed exploring this relationship! 
> 
> As I am still making my way through Daredevil S3 as we speak, this ignores that part of canon virtually completely and can therefore be seen as a follow-up to S1 of The Punisher instead.

*****

 

_Hey, uhh – [scrapes throat] – K-Karen. Hey. [muffled] –damn it, uhh.. [static]_

 

_Hey Karen. You're probably not going to hear this. It's not like I'm calling you and leaving you messages on voicemail or some shit like that. [dry chuckle] I know you wanna hear from me sometime. I'm gettin' around to that. At least, Curt seems to think I am and Curt knows his stuff._

 

_So, uhh, I guess you heard about the pardon they gave me. Free man now, can you believe that? Thought they were going to cart me back off to whatever.. [chuckles] whatever goddamn jail cell they can let me rot in. Curt says that I should try and enjoy that. He's talking about second chances like I'm not already on my fourth, or fifth, or.. well.. I think I kinda lost count, ya know? [long silence] I didn't think I'd be alive for this. Maybe that's why I'm sittin' here like a goddamn idiot talking to you._

 

_I don't know what comes next._

 

_I think I'm – uhh – I think I'm scared._

 

*****

 

_Hey Karen. I'm not in New York right now. Curt said it'd be smart to, uh, get out of the city a bit. Get my head straight. So I'm halfway down into Iowa right now, and I'm pretty sure I haven't seen good black coffee in miles, and I gotta stay awake for a bit so I thought I'd start talking to you again. I talked for a while back when I was still in New York, but it seemed like anything I talked about you'd already know and uh.. yeah.._

 

_[pause]_

 

_I just realised you don't really know Curt, yeah? He's an old friend. Used to serve with me. He runs that group for vets down at St. John's, so you might've seen him there. [coughs] I know you did that article on PTSD and the military, so I'm guessing you might've met him. Not sure if I still have the article – I tore it out of the paper, folded it and used it as a bookmark a while. Anyway, Curt's decent. He's been helpin' out. Trying to get me on my feet again._

 

_I just realised that I don't really have the first clue about what sort of things people do when they visit Iowa. Do they even do anything? I think there must be some art stuff around. Maria'd know that. She loved these old paintings, those galleries.. Anything with lots of colour in it, mind, because she didn't think anyone good could ever love a boring canvas. She painted the doorposts of our first apartment bright yellow when I was at base for a week. I came home to see the landlord drop buckets of paint at our doorstep. I don't think Maria ever forgave him for making her change it all back to beige._

 

_Anyway, uhh, I'll let you know what I find. Hope you're hangin' in there._

 

*****

 

_Hey, Kar– [small crashing noise] I'm, uh, I'm gonna need a new mug._

 

_Did you know that seagulls make it this far into land? I thought it's only proximity of the sea that would do it, but turns out there's an absolute robbery of 'em down here and they stole my ice cream earlier today. [pause] Don't laugh, okay? I can practically hear you choking back a laugh because I'm bein' an idiot over here._

 

_So the seagulls are not so nice, but the rest is okay. Weather's good. Better than in New York, I bet. So, yeah, I'm further south than I've ever been and I'm not too sure on when I became a 'kind sir' but they've been calling me that over here for a while now. Almost gettin' used to it._

 

_[long pause]_

 

_Maybe 'kind sir' is another form of 'bless your heart', huh? I should ask somebody that tomorrow._

 

_[scrapes throat]_

 

_I think I'm just.. I'm talking to you because I don't know who else to talk to. 'Cause you get it, see? You know me. And it's all coming out now, and my fingers keep twitching, and I can't hold steady long enough anymore._

 

_Today was our wedding day. And it didn't even hit me, didn't even think of it, just went straight on yellin' at that stupid seagull until I was almost blubbering like a goddamn – how could I forget? It was four in the afternoon by the time it hit me. [thumping noise] And no, no, don't say it's that I'm moving on or some shit like that! It doesn't work like that, okay? It can't work like that!_

 

_[muffled sounds]_

 

_[coughing]_

 

_I, uh, I need help._

 

_I'm sorry._

 

*****

 

_Karen. It's been a month, I guess? Maybe longer? [scoffs] Time don't work the same when you're on the road, ya know? You'll be glad to know that I'm outta reach of any seagulls right now._

 

_I talked with Curt, you know, after that last message. Almost strangled him over the phone for sayin' the exact shit I knew he'd say. He said it was good, you know? And he should know better, right, 'cause he's actually learned how to cope with– [stammers] w-with grief, yeah? He ain't like me. Me, I'm comfortable running. That's what I do now. I run. [wry-sounding chuckle] I'll be marathon man before you know it. Wouldn't that be somethin'?_

 

_He says I should try calling you for real. Just to touch base. He said you'd been working on this story about an FBI agent gone rogue or somethin'. Said it wasn't Madani – you remember her, right? You be careful, though, yeah? I don't know what I'd do if you – yeah. Just be careful._

 

*****

 

_This is, uh, this is the last one. The last tape, I mean._

 

_Apparently, they don't have any empty tapes up here in Alaska. The guy runnin' the store over here looked at me like I was some kind of time traveler who'd accidentally wound up in the future or some shit. Said that the last time anybody used tapes was fifteen years ago, which I think is a joke. Maria and I had tapes. You probably still do. I'm not.. I'm not that old, yeah? Tapes are still normal, yeah?_

 

_[muttered 'nerve of this kid', coughing]_

 

_I've got thirty-three of these now. This is number thirty-four. Front and back, a whole year or somethin'. It's gonna be winter soon. I still haven't called you._

 

_Maybe I will now._

 

_I don't know._

 

_I hope you're doing okay, yeah?_

 

_I just – I want to – I lo–_

 

*****

 

"Life in a shoebox," he says, once she's slipped the headphones off her ears. Shrugs. "I asked Curt to send me more tapes. He, uh, he called it enabling. Said he wasn't going to until I called you."

 

".. but you didn't," she says. Challenges, even, if the tone of her voice is anything to go by. He hunches in on himself at the sharpness of the sound. "Why not, Frank?"

 

"Would you have wanted me to?"

 

The noise of her derision is only slightly muffled by the large gulp of coffee she forces down her throat. She slams the mug down with more force than is strictly necessary. "I'm here, aren't I?" She clips the words out fast now, barely taking the time to draw breath. "I'm here in this godforsaken shithole in freakin' cold _Alaska_ , of all places, and I didn't even know you were here until you pulled that – that _idiot_ off of me and I almost clipped you over the head with the nearest beer jug I could find before I realised that it was _you_ and you were really _here_ and I just– I – God, Frank!"

 

"I'm sorry?" he offers.

 

"Don't. Not unless you mean it."

 

"Why are you here, Karen?" He thinks this is easier than apologising. Thinks that he needs to know why she's sitting across from him again, one year down the line, and why it feels like she's not going to leave. "Why did you come with me?"

 

"Why am I – don't turn this around on me! I'm not the one who's been holed up in some shack in the middle of freakin' _nowhere_ fixing people's cars for a living.. What the hell else was I supposed to do? I hadn't seen you in.. in.. god, Frank, it's been a year! Having other people tell me you're doing fine isn't my idea of keeping in touch, you know."

 

He raises his eyebrow. Leans back. Waits until her angry, defiant mutters quieten down and she's left frowning into her mug of coffee. She seems to need the fuel in order to deal with his bullshit. He doesn't blame her for that.

 

Frank Castle thinks he can't blame Karen Page for anything.

 

"Why are you here?" he repeats, then, softer than before. "Chasing a story, I bet, if your fight in that bar was anything to go by. Why all the way up here? Why not New York? You might not even get back once the snow starts to fall up here, you know." He's aware he sounds admonishing, as though he can singlehandedly stop her from making his level of mistakes in life. "What are you gonna do, huh?"

 

It's her turn to hunch in on herself, now. He sees her become smaller where she sits, making herself vanish into the big armchair he only bought because he needed a place to put his clothes and the old wardrobe didn't look like it was going to open up and reveal a magic land any time soon. She almost disappears between his plaid shirt and an old jacket. Her arms cross in front of her belly as if she wants to protect herself from any blow that might land on her. He heaves a sigh.

 

"Kar, I, uh.. I'm sorry, yeah?" His gaze shifts around the room. It's too hard to look at her. "I thought it'd be easier. With me gone, with things back to norm–"

 

"It's not normal. None of it, never, not anymore." He's never heard her laugh sound quite that hollow before. "It's just.." She shakes her head. Her voice breaks on the next word. "Alone. That's how it feels. Felt, I mean. Going through the motions, trying to find something to hold, trying to find meaning.. I'm just grasping at air, aren't I?"

 

"Not with me," he says.

 

"No, not with you," she confirms. She's brittle, almost broken, but still.. yeah. Still her. Still Karen. He swallows the lump that has formed in his throat. "I'm here for a story. Or I was. It's probably just another dead end. I had to.. I had to get out of the city. Please don't ask me more than that. I know about the snow, and the cold, and the space that feels like it's so big that you can just crawl out of your skin and never crawl back in." She shrugs. "I think I need this."

 

"Okay."

 

"Okay," she echoes. He dares sneak a glance at her now. Sees the small smile curve at her lip before it vanishes again. She clears her throat noisily. "So, do you often rescue damsels in distress?"

 

He makes a noise in the back of his own throat that's part-derision and part-incredulity. "Distress, ma'am? Way it looked to me, the kid was fighting to get clear of you. Probably didn't want to get stabbed with one of 'em high heels again."

 

"I really did hit him with that, huh?"

 

"Looked like it to me, yeah," he confirms. Chuckles at the memory. "Only you would try that."

 

"Almost hit you, too." She sounds vaguely proud of that. "I'm not angry with you, you know."

 

"A relief," he drawls.

 

"Don't make me hit you now." She wiggles her foot experientially. Sobers up a little too fast for his liking. "I mean.. Thank you. For getting involved back there."

 

"Sure."

 

"For everything else, too."

 

"Everything else?"

 

She gestures at the shoebox. At the tapes strewn haphazardly over his coffee table. At the small walkman and headphones she dug out of her bag at the first sight of them. A different smile tugs at her lips now. He's seen it once before.

 

"Kar–"

 

"Hush."

 

He waits. He's not sure for what. Isn't sure that having her listen to the tapes was a good idea, now, even though he didn't know what else to say. Didn't know how to offer another apology, another way of saying 'hey I am not dead do you want to grab a coffee', another lifeline for her to cling to against all better judgments he's ever made.

 

He watches how her head tilts slightly to the side, as though she's listening to whichever angel or demon is perched on her shoulder. Watches how her hair comes to resemble gold threads spun from straw in the dim glow of the sparse light he can afford. Watches the worried frown come and go on her face, watches her hands tremble and finally still, watches her lean forward with _that_ look in her eyes.

 

"You never finished the last tape," she says. "The last sentence of it, I mean."

 

He knows the one she means. It's the one he's been tripping over for weeks now, months even, and he's nowhere closer to resolving it as he was the first time he tried to say it out loud. He's not sure it counts if he's only capable of saying it in the jumbled mess that is his brain. Not sure if it matters, to him or to her, if he says it at all.

 

She smiles, radiant.

 

"I hear you. Even t-the things you don't say." She tucks her hair behind her ear as she talks, and he thinks his head has never been more quiet than it is now. "I think I always have. Made sense of you, I mean. It used to scare me a bit."

 

"It should still scare you," he cautions. His voice is rough now. He wonders when the room became so blurry. " _I_ should scare you."

 

"Only it doesn't." She shakes her head slowly, wonderingly. "You don't, Frank. You don't scare me. The only thing that scares me is.. I don't want to go."

 

"Go?"

 

"I don't want to go back." If helplessness was ever introduced to a steel spine and a blue-eyed gaze that could send a grown man to his knees, he is certain that it would look something like her. "I.. This.." She scoffs. "You're home, Frank."

 

"This is –"

 

"No, not.. not the _place_. It's just you." She sighs. Rises to her feet. "You're home to me, and I should leave."

 

He has never been the fastest learner. Fighting has taught him reflexes, but he's pretty sure that some knock-outs take a little while to recover from. And, just like that, he's underwater. His lungs don't burn, so he knows he's not drowning, but the world doesn't sound right and he feels like it's all slipping through his fingers a little too fast and a little too smooth and goddamn it all –

 

"Karen!"

 

It comes out more forceful than he's ever said it. Her name. He used to call her _ma'am_ , used to be polite. He thinks he's done being polite now that she's already halfway to the door without giving him a chance to – a chance to – He shakes his head. She doesn't have to give him chances, he knows. He knows she's better than that, but she's given him so many. Keeps giving him more.

 

He's on his feet before he knows good and well what he's doing. The cabin he calls home is makeshift, untidy, and far too small for two people. He crosses the distance and prays he'll still be able to find his way back.

 

"What, Frank?"

 

Even now, she waits. Guarded, caged, too rough around the edges, too much fighting spirit and yet that's her right down to the blood that thrums under his touch when he touches the inside of her wrist, it's her in all the hard-eyed steel that finally learns to let go of everything she cannot hope to ever control. He hears her breath catch in her throat and lets go of the breath he's been holding.

 

He finds himself in her, and he wants to cry.

 

"Stay," he mutters. Mumbles. Pleads, as though he is making amends for something that has always been unsaid between them. Asks, as though he's got any right to. "It – it hurts when you're not.. When you're gone."

 

"I'm not gone."

 

"But you want to –"

 

"No, no, I don't. I.."

 

Her words die in the air between them. They've never been good with them, though she's an investigative journalist and he just talked thirty-four tapes full of missing her. He supposes they've always been people of half-conversations, of shared looks over coffee, of moments stolen between his chaos and her own.

 

He offers her only one word now. Murmurs it against her lips when he brushes his own against them softly. Whispers it against her cheeks, against the tears that she cries for both of them, against her brow when his hands draw her into his embrace. He sacrifices it in prayer to her skin, to the house her soul is in, and surrenders it to the heart that lives within.

 

"Stay."

 

"Okay," she murmurs, lips on his ear, voice steadier than he feels. "Okay."

 

"Okay," he echoes dumbly. "Yeah."

 

"Yeah?" Her eyes are light when she looks at him, smile threatening to break loose between all the traces she leaves on him, and he thinks he'll never tire of seeing her. "You sure about that?"

 

He smiles a crooked smile back at her.

 

"Yes ma'am."

 

Outside, the snow begins to fall.


End file.
